There was a time when you had to sell commodities for making money. But now, in today’s technological era you just need to develop a useful app and that’s it. There are multiple ways of earning money through even Free Apps. In this article, we are going to read about how free apps make money or how to monetize your free apps.
For creating an application, you spend your money as well as time. So it is essential you get some monetary benefits after launching the application. Now, you can make more money with free apps than the paid apps. As per the report of Statista, the revenue from free apps can reach $37 billion in 2019, while from paid apps it will reach $29 billion. The only reason is users don’t want to use a paid app but are ready to get it for free.
How to earn money on free apps: Best approaches
There are many different ways of making money through free apps using various monetization strategies. In this article, we wouldn’t be only focusing upon the popular strategies but also check what apps can monetize this way. There are 5 most popular income ways for free apps:
1. In-app Purchases
2. Affiliate Income
3. Subscription
4. Freemium
5. Advertisement
6. Sell your API
We will discuss each of these strategies in more detail.
In-App Purchases
You must have used apps especially games where you can find many things to buy within the app. Such as immunity boosters, coins, health, cars, etc. in the games. There are two different types of purchases in the app, virtual items and physical items. Let’s know more about them.
Virtual items
If you like playing mobile apps then you must have interacted with virtual goods. As we mentioned above, you can get coins, health, cars in racing games, etc. in exchange for the real money. The other virtual goods are:
Upgrades: If the protagonist character of the game needs to upgrade you have to pay for it.
Consumables: Gamers can spend money to buy new guns, garments, ammunition, to improve their avatar in the game.
Currency: As mentioned above, there can be virtual coins or other types of currency that you can get in exchange for real money.
Apart from the mobile games, the other best examples for the in-app purchases are magazines, newspapers, video streaming apps etc.
Physical Goods
If you are selling physical goods on your app, then it will result in an e-commerce app. You must have used many e-commerce apps such as Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, etc. On these apps, the customer will find a buyable item, add to cart, and will make the payment online. Admin will make a profit by selling the product.
Affiliate Income
You can also promote any other mobile application on your app. The app owner would be ready to pay for his app promotion. It is great when the genre of the app is also similar to yours. The approach works well in news and social media apps, especially if they are for specific niches. As well as in event applications and directories, where you can find only the shops or restaurants of affiliated companies.
Subscription
Subscription has become a very common business model to earn money through your mobile application. If you are providing very quality content on your app then the users will get ready to even pay for it. For e.g. you can provide videos, music, articles, learning courses, etc. Initially, you can provide access to the limited content for free and then ask for a subscription.
The best examples are Amazon Prime, Netflix, Spotify, etc.
Freemium
As the name indicates, a Freemium model is the combination of two different models, these are “free” and “Premium”. In the freemium model, the app is free of cost. The users can download the app without paying any money but can access its premium features by paying an amount. In simple words, the users can use the free version of your app or on a trial basis but if they like the app they like the app then they can pay for the premium features as well.
This mode is most popular among mobile game developers. The best example is the popular game Angry Birds. A user can download the game app for free and play up to certain levels but to continue playing the user has to subscribe to the app.
Advertisements
Whether it is a website, YouTube, TV commercials, newspapers, magazines, or the internet, advertising is everywhere. In fact, this is the most common way of making money. In your mobile apps too, you can incorporate apps to make money. o get ads on your app, firstly you need to make your app popular. The number of downloads of your app indicates the popularity of your app. When your app gets popular, then you can choose an advertising network, and implement its SDK on the app.
You also need to choose the format of your ad to be displayed on your app. The only disadvantage of this monetization strategy is that sometimes the users get frustrated from your app and may uninstall it. This may lead to the bounce rate of your app. However, if properly implemented you can still retain the users.
Sell Your API
As you have developed an out-of-the-box app to solve different problems and incorporating unique ideas. You can provide your APIs for free but making them paid would be great for earning extra money.
Wrapping Up
Even a free app can be a huge source of money. The only requirements are of an idea and an expert mobile application development company like us. We, at Amplework, the most prominent mobile application development company in India is having expertise in developing mobile apps as per your requirements. The apps will return a good revenue to you and we will also provide you, business consultant, for free. Let us know your requirements.
